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   Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I am really amazed and somewhat amused. As you look at this so-called conference report, one could almost read it in less than a couple of minutes. I won't do that. But I find it interesting, and I ask the Senator from Massachusetts if he could share his observations with regard to the way this conference report was written. This is no conference report. This is nothing more than a list of references to other bills proclaiming it to be a conference report. This says:

   The provisions of the bills of the 106th Congress are hereby enacted into law: H.R. 5538, H.R. 5542, H.R. 5543, H.R. 5544, H.R. 5545.

   So ends the conference report. That is the most remarkable thing. I just can't imagine that anybody would be willing to put their signature to a conference report which does nothing more than reference other bills. This is the conference report--or a representation of the conference report. This is what it should look like. What I hold in my hands is how thick the conference report should be. Yet as thick as this is, they could not even get it right. We actually terminate the minimum wage in this conference report. I wonder whether the Senator from Massachusetts is aware of that and could respond to how that could have happened.

   Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, let me say to the distinguished leader, I only learned that this morning having had limited time to review it. Well, it either happened purposefully or by accident. Either way, that is not the intent of the Congress with respect to the minimum wage. I understand that it is a 6-month termination of the minimum wage, which I hope is by accident. But if it is, it represents the craziness and the sloppiness of the way in which this has come to the floor.

   Mr. DASCHLE. Well, as I say, I note in amusement, the Senator spent some time talking about the President's veto letter, and I am amused in part because the Speaker has already addressed the veto letter and was asked yesterday if Republicans would be willing to rework the tax cut bill after a veto. He responded--I hope colleagues will listen--that any new legislation would have to go through committee, and anything else would amount to half--I will call it ``half-baked'' legislation. He has another term, but I don't think I want to dignify it this morning.

   Anything other than a committee process is half-baked, according to the Speaker. Maybe that is how we leave out minimum wage reauthorization. Maybe that is how we leave out Democratic proposals, as the Senator from Nebraska had offered in the committee, along with others, to make this more fair. Maybe that is how it happens. Maybe you don't produce a bill this thick because you don't care about fairness; you don't care about getting

   it right.

   I ask the Senator from Massachusetts whether he would care to observe whether he has had, in his experience as ranking member, a time when he has ever seen legislation coming to the floor in this form, leaving out provisions that literally nullify a law that has been standing now for almost 70 years?

   Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I voiced my concern about this to the leader yesterday and a number of times previously--that this is not the way to legislate. I think most of us understand that. I think it really calls to question the sort of good-faith, bipartisan efforts our friends often talk about. There is a simple matter of courtesy with which this institution and any institution essentially needs to run. I don't like to say this, but I have to say that it just sort of runs roughshod over anybody's notions of decency that there isn't even a phone call, there isn't even a discussion. Is there a way to work this out? Can we sit down? Can we have a meeting? What is possible here? None of those questions were asked--just an assumption that this is the way we are going to do it and we are going to proceed forward. I just think it is destructive and unfortunate.

   Mr. DASCHLE. I ask the Senator from Massachusetts whether he shares my observation that it comes down to a question, as he said, of fairness. We are talking about whether or not this process is fair, whether or not, with all of the talk of bipartisanship in the Presidential campaign, there is any element of fairness or bipartisanship in the way this process has unfolded; whether or not there is fairness in a school construction proposal that leaves out over 90 percent of the school construction opportunity and need we have in this country; whether or not it is fair to provide more benefits to the top 5 percent of all taxpayers than the bottom 80 percent as represented in this bill; whether or not it is fair to give a third of all the benefits we are

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   Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I believe the eloquent questions asked by the Senator from South Dakota make their own answers. I think any American dispassionately making a judgment about this process and looking at this legislation and measuring its impact would come to the conclusion that the fundamental sense of fairness, that the distinguished leader is talking about, is absent.

   I am sure the distinguished majority leader, who is standing here, will have his response, and I understand that. He is going to suggest, wait a minute, fairness is fairness. But here is a letter from the President of the United States. The President of the United States says if we do this, he is going to veto this. He has proven previously he is prepared to veto bills when he says he will.

   It seems to me that if we are not looking for a political issue, if we really want to legislate, we would sit down with the President of the United States and say, OK, Mr. President, we are prepared to offer this; let's have an agreement. But the President says that even his offer--I want to reemphasize this--even his offer was refused. The President says on long-term care:

   I offered to embrace your proposed deduction for long-term care in exchange for inclusion of my proposal to give families who are burdened today by long-term care needs a $3,000 tax credit .

   Let me ask my colleagues this: Long-term care, I have become particularly familiar with that over the course of the last year and a half. My father passed away last July and he had considerable care, as my mother does today. It is expensive. We are fortunate that we can pay for it. But it taught me firsthand what happens to those families who can't and how extraordinarily expensive and difficult it is. We have driven families out of hospital care and we have driven them out of nursing home care. We have increasingly, through the creation of the drugs we have in this country, made it easier for people to be treated at home and be kept out of the hospital. But here we are denying people the capacity to have a $3,000 tax credit for long-term care.

   Why? So you can give more money back to the HMOs. Where is the fundamental sense of fairness? The President of the United States offered to the majority party the chance to say let's compromise. And what happens? We get legislation coming to the floor that seeks to just stuff it to the President of the United States and stuff it to the rest of us here and stuff it to the American people.

   Mrs. BOXER. Will my friend yield for a question, Mr. President?

   Mr. KERRY. I will be happy to yield for a question.

   Mrs. BOXER. I am sitting here listening carefully to the Senator from Massachusetts, to my Democratic leader, and others. I realize why the Senator started out with the word ``fairness'' and why this bill is so unfair. I wish to just ask one question. I wonder if my friend has seen the Washington Post analysis of this particular tax bill entitled ``Businesses Poised To Benefit From Bills.''

   I wanted to point out an irony and see if my friend doesn't agree, the irony of calling this a small business bill; in other words, they have hollowed out the small business bill. But let's look at what they have done. And I will be very brief, but I think it is important. It says, ``From the National Association of Broadcasters and defense contractors to the racetrack industry, to tobacco companies, business interests are poised to reap large benefits from the small print of Republican-backed bills that were moving through Congress yesterday.''

   Looking at several of the bills, it goes on to say--and again I will be brief--``But those benefits pale''--those benefits pale--``in comparison with the ones lavished on medical care providers,'' the HMOs. Those pale. So they gave to the tobacco industry; they gave to the defense contractors; they gave to the broadcasters. We know how they are all suffering. And those benefits pale in comparison with what they gave to the HMOs. So when the Vice President is out there talking about fairness and talking about fighting for people, this proves his point. When Democrats are locked out of the room--and we know they were--who walks away with the sacks of money but the HMOs that have been hurting our people.

   So I think my friend has really laid out the case. And by the way, the Post points out there are many other special interests hanging around these corridors. They are unhappy they were left out of the mix, and they are listed here--the lobbyists in their pinstripe suits standing around here waiting to get in, waiting to get some of the benefits.

   So I just wonder at the irony of the situation. I notice my friend is not wearing a pinstripe suit himself today. But the bottom line here is giveaways to those who have, asking nothing in return, giveaways to those who are hurting the senior citizens, kicking them out of the HMOs because they say Medicare doesn't pay enough. They get billions of dollars back. Nothing is really asked of them to walk away with those sacks of money. And all they are doing with the so-called small business bill is giving breaks to big business. I say to my friend, he is right to be upset on this point.

   Mr. KERRY. Well, I may say to the Senator from California--and I know the majority leader is going to point this out to us--we have a rule here, rule XXVIII, and I am confident he is going to talk about that and he is going to say, well, the Senate created a situation whereby this rule was replaced by a precedent allowing an unfortunate process whereby a piece of legislation like this ``can happen.'' That goes to what the Senator from Nebraska was talking about--the legal authority versus the sense of conscience and the question of what is right and what is wrong.

   It also goes to the question of how one gets things done. I will readily acknowledge that there is a ``precedent'' that allows

   last minute things to happen in the context of a conference. But the precedent and the rectitude with which it might be legitimately used does nothing to wipe away the question of the sort of moral or political legitimacy within the context of this institution or our own politics. When the President of the United States sends a letter and says: Don't do this; I will veto it because it is fundamentally unfair, but nevertheless people go ahead and proceed to do it anyway, that really calls into question motive, purpose, outcome, and why we are here today in this situation.

   So I am going to readily acknowledge, sure, you can use some technicality of legitimacy to say it, but it is not legitimate in the larger context of what we are trying to get done. It is not legitimate when measured against the judgment of most Americans about what is fair and right.

   It is clear that we have a health care delivery system problem. We have millions of Americans who have no insurance whatsoever. The President offered a way, a far less expensive way than that which has been exploited by the majority party, to provide care to those citizens. In his letter--and I want to emphasize this--the President says very clearly, ``Our family care proposal would expand coverage to 4 million uninsured parents at a cost of slightly over $3,000 per person. Your proposal''--this is the proposal of the majority side--``would provide additional coverage to one-seventh the people at six times the cost.'' One-seventh of the people at six times the cost.

   That is what this fight is about. It is about uninsured people versus people who are insured. It is about unintended consequences, or maybe vague results. If you give a health care tax credit to people who already have coverage, you are giving an incentive to corporations that provide that coverage to turn to them and say we don't need to provide you with coverage anymore; you now have a handsome health care tax credit from the Federal Government; go buy your own. And you wind up reducing the number of those who are covered, not in fact encouraging further coverage. So there is a complete reversal of policy in a sense here, and I think it goes to the core of what this particular legislation is about.

   Now, I said earlier--and I want to complete the part of my statement

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   But, again, without my knowledge, without one Senate Democrat being there, that entire provision was thrown and traded away in the middle of the night, in a room that I still do not know where it was, with those people who met without even inviting us. The consensus that had been built for the small business bill was traded away in exchange for other items that are in this legislation. I say to my colleagues, respectfully, that is not the way to build consensus. That is not the way to encourage the capacity to have agreement in the final results here.

   There are important provisions in this bill. Provisions which I worked to include and worked with other members to get included. There is a reauthorization of the National Women's Business Council at $1 million a year. That is important. We should be doing that together. It enhances the procurement opportunities for women-owned businesses. We built an important consensus on that. We should be doing that together. It reauthorizes the very small

   business concerns program. We worked hard for that. We should be doing that. It reauthorizes the Socially and Economically Disadvantaged Business Program, it extends the SBA's cosponsorship authority, and it has important provisions to increase veteran owned businesses. There were important changes to the Microloan Program, which I included, specifically provisions that increased the maximum loan amount from $25,000 to $35,000, and increasing the average loan size to $15,000. These are important provisions that we worked on together. Its not a perfect document, but it has the support of nearly all members, because we all had a stake in it and were a part of the process.

   There are good things in this bill. I regret the fact that I am put in the unfortunate position of having this sort of nonlegislative process crowd in on the legislative process and take away our ability to promptly pass important legislation for small businesses in this country. I regret that the Wellstone provision that would have created a 3-year $9 million pilot project to build the capacity of community development venture capital firms through research and training and management assistance was stripped out without our knowledge or consent. Again, without sort of our consent or participation whatsoever.

   But let me focus finally, if I may, on underscoring a couple of aspects about the bipartisanship here. I introduced legislation earlier this year, with my distinguished colleague from Maine, Senator COLLINS, to try to address the lack of adequate funding for one specific service on which seniors depend, and that is home health care. We both shared a belief--shared by almost all of our colleagues in the Senate--that the crisis in home health care is becoming so glaring that we ought to be able to build a bipartisan consensus here to do something about it. And we laid out a sense of how the Senate could do that.

   Unfortunately, in this legislation, we see a reluctance to try to properly address that home health care component, coupled with the nursing home care component--again, in favor of the HMOs themselves which have cut some 400,000 seniors from coverage in the course of the year.

   We laid out the picture for the Senate: Funding for home health care has plummeted since enactment of the BBA of 1997. The original cuts in home health care payments included in the BBA totaled $16 billion, but estimates now show that the industry will sustain a cut in Medicare reimbursement of more than 4 times that--$69 billion. According to CBO, Medicare spending on home health care dropped 45 percent in the last two fiscal years--from $17.5 billion in 1998 to $9.7 billion in 1999--far beyond the original amount of savings sought by the BBA. The draconian cuts in home health care services mirror the cuts in funding for hospitals and nursing homes. These cuts have created a crisis in our country.

   And many of us worked across the aisles to do something about it. But we didn't have a seat at the table when the BBRA was put together.

   And I ask you, has the Majority responded adequately to this crisis? Have they provided, in the BBRA, sufficient funds to strengthen our local hospitals, nursing homes and home health agencies. No, they have not.

   What, then, in spite of the obvious needs for remedies, what do the Republicans, do with the $30 billion in funding that they provide in the BBRA? Who benefits from this restoration of funding? Would you believe that the primary recipients of the increased Medicare funds are HMOs? That's right, the same HMOs who have dropped, this year alone, 400,000 seniors from their health plans because they could not turn a profit caring for the aged. The same HMOs that fight tooth-and-nail against adopting a Patient Bill of Rights which would ensure Americans have basic rights to quality health care.

   The $30 billion in Medicare this add-back package is too heavily targeted at HMOs. Over the first 5 years, one-third of all of the relief in this bill goes to HMOs; over the second 5 years one-half of the relief goes to HMOs.

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